


Mortal

by MarbleAide



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dialogue, Drinking, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleAide/pseuds/MarbleAide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, God's there. Most times, God isn't. Sebastian realizes that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mortal

“Why do you like the stars so much?”

He asks, suddenly and without reason. He’s drunk, that much is obvious, if not by the bottle of bourbon sitting on the table, threatening balance as it’s halfway off, then by the thick smell of alcohol seeping from pores when getting too close to the couch. It’s not an unusual thing, Sebastian getting drunk, but normally he goes off to do it in private. Now, Jim’s staring at the back of his head trying to decide whether he should answer or just be angry that Sebastian grew clumsy enough to spill half his current glass on the throw blanket he’d bought last time he was in Morocco.

This time, it seems, he’s saving the anger forever. Right now, he doesn’t recall getting acquainted with his dearest employee while drunk, save for the first time they met, but that was so long ago and when ‘personal’ was only ever written in files. Jim sees an opportunity, as ever, and takes it.

“You mean something else,” He starts, doesn’t move from where he stands and Sebastian doesn’t move from where he sits. They don’t face each other, not yet at least. “You don’t care about stars.”

“But you do.” Sebastian’s fast, voice rough with drink and ice clinks in the tumbler while he waves it about in his hand. “You care, about the stars and the planets and all that stuff above. I know, you’ve got that think up there. Telescope.” he gives out a laugh, let’s his head fall back to rest against the cushions. “I remember, remember six—seven? Six months ago you turned off the grid of fucking London to watch that rock shower.”

It’s true, Jim won’t deny it, because he did, has, will do again if need be. Watch the sky rain down as people below grow ever so scared. It’s how he likes to think the world should be, but doesn’t voice this. Says nothing for a long while, listens to Sebastian sip before pouring another three fingers that looks more like four. Jim can hear him lick at his lips, smack, then his head turns so Jim can see his eyes dark and red around the edges.

“You think God puts them there.”

It’s not a question, not asked with the usual quirk of a brow. It’s the root of the problem, one that makes Jim think, _‘Ah, so that’s what he’s going on about.’_ He moves around the couch, takes Sebastian’s drink from him to which no protest comes for the action, and sits down in the chair diagonal where Sebastian’s slumped.

Jim drinks. “What makes you say that?”  

Sebastian does his best to roll his eyes, does it mostly with his body as his shoulders move up, down, arms flopping with the movement. He’s still got his boots on, dried mud and gravel stuck between the grip. Jim wonders if it was the hit that made him drink or the entire world moving too quickly in. But he’s seen Sebastian hold his gun and seen him say ‘fuck it all’ and knows for a fact it’s neither, which makes him wonder all the more, imagines cracking open his skull to see.

“It’s the way you look at them—all of it.” Another hand way, directed up at the ceiling where Sebastian’s eyes rise up to stare at. There’s stars behind the blue, comets and dust and a big vacant blackness that most don’t think too much about. Sebastian sighs, closes his eyes and breathes in as if feeling the burn of nuclear reaction in his lungs. “Heaven’s graced by God. I know, I don’t just see the science in your eyes when you look up.” At least, that’s what Jim thinks, figures he’s trying so hard to understand. He doesn’t, doubts anyone ever will. “Why?”

“Why stars?”

“Why God.”

Jim smiles, can’t help it. Leans back in his chair, leg crossed over the other, and finishes off the bourbon in the bottom of the glass, burning down his throat. “You don’t believe in God, Sebastian?”

“And you do?” Sebastian laughs. Every fiber of his being laughs, a deep chuckle that turns up in volume, like an avalanche that turns maniacal. Jim sees tears at the corners of his sniper’s eyes, watches him wipe them away, knows they’re fake; only a bodily reaction. Still, he finds a smile of his own creeping onto his lips for whatever reason and stays because of it.

“But, dear, you’re catholic. Says so on your tags. Just in case you needed a funeral, all those army kinds like to do it proper. “

The laughter stops, abruptly. Darkened blue eyes look over, down, stare at Jim then down to the glass he still has in his hands. Licks his lips, wants it, and Jim smiles all the more.

“Used to,” Sebastian replies, let’s the words flow freely from his lips as he leans forward, glass forgotten in a second, to grab up the entire bottle. There’s less than half left, which should be concerning. “Used to be, never really though.” he shrugs, “Mum was the bible type, not the strict sort of thing, but the one that tucked you in at night said God watched over you an all. Liked the idea of it, you know? As a kid it’s easy to think all that bullshit. Be ignorant. Makes you feel good inside until Mum’s dead and there’s nowhere to point the finger but up.”

Jim’s read it all, yes, but it’s so much more different hearing it from Sebastian’s lips instead. He holds more stress than any paper ever could, can hear his throat tighten near the end, can picture how tears are attached to the emotion now. It’s interesting.

“But that’s the thing, yeah? Still got someone to blame, someone to look to and scream at when everything Mum said feels like a lie. Feel like you’re owned some answers, but you still believe.” Sebastian’s unscrewing the cap from the bottle, lets it drop to the floor as he takes in a mouthful. The liquid sits in his mouth a second, two, before he manages to swallow it all down. He winces. “Fuck, no matter how much you hate you’re still picturing him up there mocking you instead of helping you out. He’s still...existing.”

There’s a silence that isn’t filled. Jim’s waiting for Sebastian to continue, but he’s off in his head now, holding his bottle and staring dimly off at the wall. It’s unsatisfying until it is, long and drawn out, perfectly dramatic right up until Sebastian blinks, turns against to Jim, and speaks.

“Why do you believe in ‘im?”

Jim blinks once, on other occasions he would lie. Tonight, for the reasoning in his head is that Sebastian won’t remember in the morning, he doesn’t.

“I don’t care.” The reply is flat, a shrug in addition to the words. “Why does it matter? God, no God, multiple Gods, benevolent ones or ones that bring down plagues to force their point. She, He, It. Does it matter? I’ll be rotting in the ground or burning in whatever form of hell happens to be right. I’ve heard it all. Had priests on their knees tell me my soul is damned. It’s redundant.”

“But you still think there’s something up there.”

“I think,” Jim’s voice is quick now, “That my time alive is better off worrying about then what happens when I’m not.” Tight smile, their eyes meet with a fire in one and a sorrow in the other—fire wins out, sorrow turns away. As it should be.

“But the stars—“

“Space,” He cuts in, feels his fingers clench against the glass still within his grasp, knows if he goes any harder it will shatter under the hold. He thinks about welcoming the blood. “Is something that god gave man to look up at and have hope for things that will never be. It’s cruelty disguised by kindness.”

Jim’s head tilts to the side, gaze intense and questioning. “So what’s yours? Mummy dies and you get all pissy with higher beings?”

“Did, I said. Did.”

“That’s right, so what was it—body count like all the typical soldier sob stories of losing faith?”

Again, Sebastian manages to laugh. This time, however, it’s not as loud. It’s soft and cracked and leaves him with a full body shutter that he tries to hide, fails, but doesn’t have the mindset to attempt covering it up. “No. Fuck, no. Didn’t give a shit with that—knew who I was killing, knew why, how, didn’t care whether God was looking down on me doing it. It was the sewer.”

Jim perks up because this, this wasn’t the thing written in the files. This was the think that Sebastian carried solely on memory alone, showcased over his body with the array of scars across face and chest—the thing that give him nightmares that he doesn’t admit to, the thing that causes his breath to catch. Oh. Oh.

Sebastian looks sobered. Looks like a tired man, the lines of his brow show his age and the shadows under his eyes shows his weary. He’s tired and broken and glued up back together by someone who put some pieces back the wrong way, so cracks still show.

Jim watches, says nothing.

“When you’re down there, in the muck and smell of decay and rot and human filth all around you…when you’ve got blood that doesn’t belong to a person on your skin, mixing with your own and the light of earth is dim behind you… you face against a beast with a knife and think that’s it, that’s all. Can see how dark the world gets, how it doesn’t matter. ‘Cause then you’re bleeding out but still warm, and the corpse you’re on is soft, but growing cold and there’s just so much blood down there in a sewer, so much ache… that’s it.”

He pauses, takes a drink, body sill afterwards with his head between his shoulders, dangling.

“It’s when you know for certain, right then, that God’s not looking down on you. He never has, because nothing like that is fit in a sewer. There’s no saving grace or suffering. There’s just that, death. It’s final and everything.”

There’s tears. Real tears. At which Jim has half a mind to mock him for, but doesn’t. Feels a tug he doesn’t acknowledge, but gets up anyway to slip the bottom from tight-gripped fingers, place it on the table with the glass.

“Oh, my Tiger,” He coos out, lifts a head from hands while sliding onto Sebastian’s lap. Then holds him, pressed his forehead to his chest and holds him. Lets him cry. It’s a silent cry, but the power of it racks over Sebastian’s body, makes his shoulders shutter and Jim’s own body quake with it. There’s white knuckles gripping his sleeves, holding on like a falling man, thinks that Sebastian really is, and doesn’t mind the wrinkles they’ll leave.

Jim coos, comforts, as best he is able and stays how Sebastian needs him. His own head lifts up, looks to the ceiling and through in his mind’s eye to see the cosmos of an entire universe unravel before his vision. Clutters of red giants and the dying breathe of dwarves, the swirling formations of galaxies and the multiple colors they produce and all the little bits they carry inside them, all the way to the vortexes of gravity and black and suction, let’s out a heavy sigh, closes his eyes, smiles.

And it’s fine. All fine.

Sebastian doesn’t need to believe in a Lord; in some God, good or bad or somewhere in between the two, because Jim’s got him, right here, and that’s better than any Higher Being or Greater Good could ever be, for Jim will never forsake him.

His Tiger left in a sewer, looking up at the stars.


End file.
